Historic Places: The Dible Grave, Winn Parish, LA
Submitted by Peggy Chandler Beaubouef, 2656 Hwy 1232, Winnfield, LA 71483
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Copyright. All rights reserved.
http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm
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SOURCE: "the sassafras", Vol. 3, No. 1, 1984-85, published by the Calvin
Folklore Society. (Permission to use granted submitter by Linda Dupree,
sponsor.)
[NOTE: The Calvin Folklore Society was a student organization of Calvin High
School dedicated to the preservation of oral traditions -- the local folklore
of the area. Articles in "the sassafras" were written by the students after
research and interviews with older citizens of the area. Faculty sponsors were
Linda Dupree and Steve Bartlett.]
THE DIBLE GRAVE
by Jeannie Chandler & Debbie Dunnigan
The Dible grave is a local landmark known to every hunter in north
Natchitoches Parish. For as long as most people can remember, there has been a
crooked stone marker inscribed with "P. Dible, Co. F, La. Inf. 28, C.S.A.: and
surrounded by a small, wrought-iron bedframe with elaborate curliques and
lions-face medallions. There are no dates on the tombstone because Pete Dible
never knew exactly how old he was and nobody now living remembers exactly when
he died. When Pete Dible was ten or eleven years old, he ran away from his
home near New Orleans. He never saw nor heard from any of family again.
Peter never learned to read or write and grew up on his own. He was a grown
man when the War Between the States broke out and he joined the Louisiana
Infantry. He became close friends with Marshal Walker of Ashland, Louisiana,
and spent his furloughs with Walker's family - including Walker's sister's
family of Goldonna, Louisiana - the Gunters. Once when he was on leave, Pete
was bitten on the right hand by a rattlesnake and consequently lost all but
one of the fingers on that hand. Since he was so deformed, he never married,
feeling that he could not properly support a wife.
When the war was over, Pete Dible come to Goldonna and lived with the Gunter
family and various other families who would take him in. Mr. Terral Gunter was
a child of that family and recalls sitting and listening to fascinating tales
that Pete told about his adventures. Friends and neighbors went together and
built and furnished a "batching" house for Pete. His only personal belongings
were a trunk of clothes and a wrought iron bed. He didn't live by himself too
long because he seemed to miss being with a family and moved back in with the
Gunters.
In 1910 Pete Dible died - an old man of about seventy years. The Gunters
buried their friend in the Parlee graveyard. All other graves have disappeared
and the grave marked as belonging to P. Dible stands alone. And so Pete Dible
has slept undisturbed for seventy years under the pines framed by his bedstead
- the only piece of furniture he ever owned.